Welcome

Registration

Your passwords must be 8 characters in length and contain at least one uppercase letter and one number.

Retype Your Password

*

First Name

*

Last Name

*

Address

*

Country

*

Zip Code

*

Job Title

*

Company/Affiliation

*

City

*

State/Province

*

Primary Focus

*

Comments

Agree

By checking this box, for the purposes of obtaining access to the www.media.ford.com or the www.media.lincoln.com website, I agree to the privacy statement and voluntarily give consent to have my personally identifiable information collected, processed, and stored in Ford Motor Company's databases located in Michigan, USA and to global transfers of this information within Ford and its affiliates, and their service providers.

Go Further

Aug 21, 2013 | Dearborn, Mich.

Ford Studies Space Robots for Connected Vehicle Communications

Ford begins three-year research project with St. Petersburg Polytechnic University in Russia to observe the communication models of robots in space, with potential for connected vehicle communications applications

By studying communication between robots on the International Space Station and with Earth, the project aims to improve the reliability of connected vehicle communications and aid in the advancement of emergency vehicle communication methods

Ford is analyzing the most robust and reliable global telematics networks to help reduce traffic accidents; ease congestion; and provide faster, more accurate EMS response through vehicle-to-cloud, vehicle-to-infrastructure, vehicle-to-vehicle and other communications

Ford is studying communications between space robots and Earth to enhance future applications of the connected car communications protocol. The research furthers the company’s commitment to industry leadership in the development of connected vehicle communications to help reduce traffic congestion and aid in the advancement of emergency vehicle communication methods.

Just one way Ford is making good on this commitment is through the launch of a three-year research partnership with the telematics department of St. Petersburg Polytechnic University in Russia in its association with that country’s space industry. The goal of Ford’s relationship with the university is to analyze space-based robotic communications systems for vehicle mesh networks to aid in mobility solutions.

The development of connected vehicle communications has the potential to reduce traffic accidents and ease congestion by enabling vehicles to communicate with each other, and to communicate with buildings, traffic lights, the cloud and other systems to deliver a message or detect and respond to imminent collision warnings.

“Ford has been committed to the research and development of connected vehicle communications for more than a decade,” said Paul Mascarenas, chief technical officer and vice president, Ford research and innovation. “Our participation in this research can aid in the development of next-generation Ford driver-assist technologies. These technologies will globally benefit Ford customers, other road users and the environment.”

Emergency situations
One promising development from Ford’s research project with St. Petersburg Polytechnic University is the advancement in emergency vehicle communication methods. Ford is analyzing how emergency messages should be sent to ensure delivery if network failures were to occur, identifying the systems and methods that provide redundancy in case of primary delivery failure.

For example, if an accident were to cause vehicle-to-cloud communications (V2C) to be broken, a vehicle may still have access to a vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications network. An emergency signal message could potentially be sent through V2V to a vehicle nearby, and then between vehicles and infrastructures until it reached EMS.

“The research of fallback options and robust message networks is important,” said Oleg Gusikhin, technical leader in systems analytics for Ford. “If one network is down, alternatives need to be identified and strengthened to reliably propagate messages between networks.”

Using the knowledge accrued from analyzing the space robots, Ford engineers could then develop an algorithm that is integrated into the V2X system resulting in a message that would route through the appropriate network depending on the level of its importance. An emergency message, for example, may be communicated through the faster mesh network, whereas an entertainment-related message would route through a vehicle-to-infrastructure application, an embedded device or a brought-in device network.

“We are analyzing the data to research which networks are the most robust and reliable for certain types of messages, as well as fallback options if networks were to fail in a particular scenario,” said Gusikhin. “In a crash, for example, a vehicle could have the option to communicate an emergency through a DSRC, LTE or a mesh network based on the type of signal, speed and robustness required to reach emergency responders as quickly as possible.”

Blueprint for Mobility
Findings from this work could potentially enhance Ford’s wireless communication technologies and Blueprint for Mobility. Ford’s Blueprint for Mobility details the company’s vision on how to tackle the issues of mobility in an increasingly crowded and urbanized planet between now and 2025.

About Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Dearborn, Michigan, manufactures or distributes automobiles across six continents. With about 187,000 employees and 62 plants worldwide, the company’s automotive brands include Ford and Lincoln. The company provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. For more information regarding Ford and its products worldwide, please visit http://corporate.ford.com.